Portfolio vs. Gallery vs. simple page

Not using blog features but need to make either portfolio or gallery pages to display samples. Cannot figure out how to set up a template to display them… Want to show a title for the page and plug in three or four samples below it. Also need a general “portfolio” or “gallery” page on which to display the categories in which I can link to the various sample pages. Really having trouble.
Can I use a copy of the home page as a template and set up a css for displaying the samples for each of the categories? I’ve tried everything.
The site itself is a “working site” until it’s done, at which point we’ll move it to the current URL.